Kicking Big Oil out of the arts

Danny ChiversBP or not BP?

Prologue:

In 2012, BP sponsors the Royal Shakespeare Company!

This gives it:

• Cheap PR• False legitimacy• Social licence

• Self-censorship of artists

We decide to respond…

Act 1: The rise of BP or not BP?

(2012)

A season of on-stage interventions at the RSC:

support from audiences membership and online

support grew rapidly coverage in national and

theatre media private and public support

from actors and staff

Act 2: New spaces, styles, members

(2013-14)

1) Macbeth in Tate Britain Invisible theatre, site-specific

playing with familiar text/stories advantages of using performance

2) Vikings in British Museum DIY approach

Media breakthrough – C4 “Flash-horde” and the

challenges of public announcement

Act 3: Culture Wars (2015)

15 performances in 2015:

• Creativity, experimentation, and ambition

• Solidarity and linking issues, wider institutional critique

• Collaboration and coalition

• Research and media work

• BM becomes stage where wider battle is playing out

Act 4: Starting to win (2016)Turning up the heat on the BM • challenges of representation

Two huge wins• Tate and EIF

• role of artists speaking out

But British Museum, RSC andothers renew their BP deals

• We respond with more ambitious

performances…

Act 5: Cracks appear (2017/8)

Fewer but more targeted:

• Focus on RSC and BM

• Rebel Mischief Festival

• Bigger and bolder British Museum interventions

• Building support behind the scenes

Act 6: Out, damned logo! (2019)

Important new allies• collaboration with Iraqi activists at BM•big theatre and arts names speak out• school strikers threaten RSC boycott

The theatre world acts!• RSC drops BP, NT drops Shell• BP deal broken partway through• Dominoes starting to fall?

Key learning points:

• The right form of action for the right time and place

• Balance between disrupting status quo and engaging key players

• Persistence – and the role creativity plays in that

Creative challengeTalk to the person next to you.

1) Each come up with one example of how you’ve seen art and creativity used well in a project for positive change.

2) Each come up with a new suggestion for how art and creativity could be used in something you are working on.

A culture beyond oil is possible!

bp-or-not-bp.org/troy artnotoil.org.uk fossilfundsfree.org